page_title: Eastern Front (World War II)
section_title: Adolf Hitler
hierarchical_section_title: Eastern Front (World War II) / Leadership / Adolf Hitler
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Adolf Hitler ADN-ZB Mitch, national-sozialistischen Führer, Hauptkriegsverbrecher. geb. 20.4.1889 in Braunau (Inn), gest. (Selbstmord) 30.4.1945 in Berlin übernahm 1921 die Führung der NSDAP; stand im November 1923 an der Spitze eines gegen die Demokratie westlicher Prägung gerichteten Putschversuchs in München (Hitler Putsch). Am 30.1.1933 wurde Hitler Reichskanzler; damit begann die Errichtung der national-sozialistischen Diktatur . Am 2.8.1934 wurde er Nachfolger Hindenburgs als Staatsoberhaupt; 1938 Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht. Hauptkonkurrent des international-sozialistischen Diktators Stalin . UBz: Porträtaufnahme vom 20.4.1937. 2754-49 Abgebildete Personen: Hitler, Adolf: Reichskanzler, Deutschland Information added by Wikimedia users.Čeština: Adolf Hitler v roce 1937
context_page_description: The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe, and Southeast Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945. It is known as the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union and some of its successor states, while everywhere else it was called the Eastern Front.
  The battles on the Eastern Front of the Second World War constituted the largest military confrontation in history. They were characterised by unprecedented ferocity, wholesale destruction, mass deportations, and immense loss of life due to combat, starvation, exposure, disease, and massacres. Of the estimated 70–85 million deaths attributed to World War II, around 30 million occurred on the Eastern Front. The Eastern Front was decisive in determining the outcome in the European theatre of operations in World War II, eventually serving as the main reason for the defeat of Nazi Germany and the Axis nations.
  The two principal belligerent powers were Germany and the Soviet Union, along with their respective allies.
context_section_description: Adolf Hitler exercised tight control over the German war-effort, spending much of his time in his command bunkers (most notably at Rastenburg in East Prussia, at Vinnitsa in Ukraine, and under the garden of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin). At crucial periods in the war he held daily situation-conferences at which he used his remarkable talent for public speaking to overwhelm opposition from his generals and from the OKW staff with rhetoric.
  In part because of the unexpected degree of German success in the Battle of France (despite the warnings of the professional military) Hitler believed himself a military genius, with a grasp of the total war-effort that eluded his generals. In August 1941, when Walther von Brauchitsch (commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht) and Fedor von Bock appealed for an attack on Moscow, Hitler instead ordered the encirclement and capture of Ukraine, in order to acquire the farmland, industry, and natural resources of that country. Some historians like Bevin Alexander in How Hitler Could Have Won regard this decision as a missed opportunity to win the war.
  In the winter of 1941–1942 Hitler believed that his obstinate refusal to allow the German armies to retreat had saved Army Group Centre from collapse. He later told Erhard Milch:
  I had to act ruthlessly. I had to send even my closest generals packing, two army generals, for example … I could only tell these gentlemen, "Get yourself back to Germany as rapidly as you can – but leave the army in my charge. And the army is staying at the front."
  The success of this hedgehog defence outside Moscow led Hitler to insist on the holding of territory when it made no military sense, and to sack generals who retreated without orders. Officers with initiative were replaced with yes-men or with fanatical Nazis. The disastrous encirclements later in the war – at Stalingrad, Korsun and many other places – resulted directly from Hitler's orders. This idea of holding territory led to another failed plan, dubbed "Heaven-bound Missions", which involved fortifying even the most unimportant or insignificant of cities and the holding of these "fortresses" at all costs. Many divisions became cut off in "fortress" cities, or wasted uselessly in secondary theatres, because Hitler would not sanction retreat or voluntarily abandon any of his conquests.
  Frustration at Hitler's leadership in the war was one of the factors in the attempted coup d'etat of 1944, but after the failure of the 20 July Plot Hitler considered the army and its officer corps suspect and came to rely on the Schutzstaffel (SS) and Nazi party members to prosecute the war.
  Hitler's direction of the war ultimately proved disastrous for the German Army, though the skill, loyalty, professionalism and endurance of officers and soldiers enabled him to keep Germany fighting to the end. F. W. Winterbotham wrote of Hitler's signal to Gerd von Rundstedt to continue the attack to the west during the Battle of the Bulge:
  From experience we had learned that when Hitler started refusing to do what the generals recommended, things started to go wrong, and this was to be no exception.
caption: Adolf Hitler led Germany during World War II.
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